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Lucas Luhr Gives Muscle Milk Baltimore pole position

August 30, 2012

Lucas Luhr came out on top in qualifying for the Baltimore Sports Car Challenge.

After narrowly missing out on victory two weeks ago in the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón, Muscle Milk Pickett Racing's Lucas Luhr on Friday took pole position for the Baltimore Sports Car Challenge presented by SRT. The German set a time of 1 minute, 25.174 seconds (86.223 mph) in his No. 6 Honda Performance Development ARX-03a prototype.

Luhr and Klaus Graf saw their five-race win streak end in the last ALMS round at Road America. The LMP1 championship leaders are eager to get back on the right foot.

“It is really good for us—the series, the drivers,” said Luhr, who is racing in Baltimore for the first time. “I like racing on city circuits, and I think this is the best city course I have driven. It is very nice. But there are a lot of bumps. It was almost like the car didn't like me and it was trying to throw me out. We will massage the car a little bit tonight and see what she has in the morning.”

In the afternoon practice and qualifying sessions, teams faced the addition of a temporary chicane exiting the final corner meant to reduce the speeds over a particularly bumpy section of the frontstraight due to railroad tracks. (The Izod IndyCar Series, which also races in Baltimore this weekend, has installed a chicane to lessen the railroad tracks' effect.) Luhr was one of the quickest learners as he went 0.740-second quicker than Dyson Racing's Guy Smith and the No. 16 Lola-Mazda.

Smith and Dyson beat Muscle Milk at Road America and are the main challengers in the LMP1 title race after winning the 2011 championship.

“I think we are going to see a tough race tomorrow. With the heat [expected to reach the mid-90s], it won't make it any easier,” Luhr said. “It will be important to get a good start, but you're never going to win a race in the first corner. Passing will be difficult because the track is not very wide, and the GT cars are very quick. You can't just cut through the field; you have to work together, there will need to be give and take.”

In the GT class, Oliver Gavin turned Corvette Racing's fortunes around in a big way with the GT pole position. After his No. 4 Corvette C6 ZR1 suffered a smashed tailpipe and body damage following a run-in with a prototype which hit him in the day's second practice session, Gavin turned a lap of 1:29.945 (81.650 mph) to take his first ALMS pole position of the season. The Brit was 0.382-second clear of Bill Auberlen in BMW Team RLL's No. 55 BMW M3 GT.

Jan Magnussen qualified third in class in the No. 3 Corvette, just 0.468-second off Gavin's pace.

“We had to run with a bent exhaust for qualifying. So Jan wants that setup on his car for the race tomorrow,” Gavin quipped. “The Corvette is pretty strong, so I wasn't concerned about structural and suspension damage. And the motor was running fine, so it didn't seem to be a problem.”

Gavin and co-driver Tommy Milner enter the weekend with the class championship lead, Corvette Racing leads BMW Team RLL in the team standings, and Chevrolet has the edge on BMW for the manufacturers' crown. Naturally the goal for this weekend is for drivers to keep their cars off the walls. That goes double for any championship contenders.

“Win it; that's the best way to go about the championship race,” Gavin said. “You need a lot of luck on any street circuit. Everyone is racing out there, but they are racing against the circuit. They're trying to keep it on the ground too; [the track is] so bumpy and so aggressive. You have to not have any incidents with anyone.”

A last-lap flyer by Christophe Bouchut put Level 5 Motorsports on the LMP2 pole position. The Frenchman set a time of 1:27.119 (84.298 mph) in the No. 055 HPD ARX-03b he shares with Scott Tucker on the last of his 10 laps. It was good enough for a 0.080-second advantage over Conquest Racing's Martin Plowman. Bouchut's first laps with the chicane came in qualifying.

Meanwhile in the LMP Challenge class, double-duty this weekend is no problem for former CART and IndyCar racer Bruno Junqueira. The Brazilian took his second Prototype Challenge pole position of the season for RSR Racing. He turned a lap of 1:27.464 (83.966 mph) in the No. 9 ORECA FLM09 he drives with Tomy Drissi, who won the LMPC race last year. Junqueira also is running in the IndyCar race in Baltimore. In ALMS qualifying, he outpaced CORE autosport's Ryan Dalziel by 0.077-second and Colin Braun by 0.330-second. The top five cars were within 0.814-second.

“I'm in cars a lot,” Junqueira said. “You have to completely change your mind-set when you are moving between the two cars. They are very different . . . night and day.”

RSR's starting position is in limbo, however. Junqueira appeared to break the rear suspension coming out of the chicane when the left-rear of the ORECA slapped the outside concrete wall. Even with the hit and the broken car, he still went fast enough to knock Dalziel off pole position. Even more impressive is that Junqueira started his final lap with bent steering after he brushed another wall.

“I gave it everything I could,” he admitted. “The car was dragging and I knew I had to keep going. I was lucky to finish the lap and keep it on pole.”

In GT Challenge, Damien Faulkner took his fourth pole position of the season for Green Hornet Racing in the No. 34 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup. The Irishman turned a lap of 1:1:35.493 (76.906 mph) in a topsy-turvy affair that saw four cars take turns with the fastest time of the session.

Faulkner was 0.624-second clear of Alex Job Racing's Leh Keen and another 0.295-second better than JDX Racing's Michael Valiante. Faulkner admitted he surprised himself with the pole position given the scarce time he had on track during Friday's practice sessions.

“I think I had one lap with the new chicane before qualifying,” said Faulkner, who drives with Peter LeSaffre. “It was nerve racking; we had less than 15 laps all together this weekend. The Green Hornet team put together a great car out of the box. We haven't touched it since it came off the truck.”

Keen's teammate Cooper MacNeil leads the class drivers' championship over Faulkner and Peter LeSaffre. AJR is ahead of TRG and Green Hornet in the team championship. Faulkner knows that time is short if he and LeSaffre want to make a move. MacNeil and AJR hold the largest championship leads of all the five classes—with the exception of CORE's championship clinch in LMPC.